As always, it was great to get along to AUUG’s annual conference last week, this year in Sydney.
Not only was it good to catch up with the usual AUUG suspects, some of which travelled from Perth, I also ran into someone who I hadn’t seen in over five years. I didn’t bring my camera so unfortunately no happy snaps.
I picked up a copy of OpenBSD but I’m too scared to install it for fear of not turning back to Linux! Interestingly, the CD cover jokingly states the software “may contain traces of GPL code”. Hey BSD people, the GPL ain’t that bad – at least it forces all these greedy multinational IT companies to give something back to the community which they so often ‘borrow’ from.
The only real disappointment was the seemingly low attendance. Last year’s conference in Melbourne looked like it attracted many more people. I hope I’m wrong and that there were more people this year, but that wasn’t my impression at all. It’s a shame because after a few years of declining membership (like all user groups), AUUG has made a real effort to recruit new members. AUUG’s message is now clearly more than just for Unix users and extends to a wider scope of IT issues.
Let’s hope next year sees double the numbers!
Rodney
